Funny Girl (film)

This article is about the film. For the Nick Hornby novel, see Funny Girl (novel).

Funny Girl
Post-Oscar release poster
Directed byWilliam Wyler
Screenplay byIsobel Lennart
Based on
Funny Girl
1964 musical
by
Produced byRay Stark
Starring
CinematographyHarry Stradling
Edited by
Music by
  • Jule Styne
  • Bob Merrill
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • September 18, 1968 (1968-09-18)
Running time
149 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$14.1 million
Box office$58.5 million[2]

Funny Girl is a 1968 American biographical musical film directed by William Wyler and written by Isobel Lennart, adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title. It is loosely based on the life and career of comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein.

Produced by Brice's son-in-law Ray Stark (and the first film by his company Rastar), with music and lyrics by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, the film stars Barbra Streisand (in her film debut reprising her Broadway role) as Brice and Omar Sharif as Arnstein, with a supporting cast featuring Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Lee Allen and Mae Questel.

A major critical and commercial success, Funny Girl became the highest-grossing film of 1968 in the United States and received eight Academy Award nominations. Streisand won Best Actress, tying with Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter). In 2006, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 16 on its list commemorating AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals. Previously it had ranked the film No. 41 in its 2002 list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions, the songs "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade" at No. 13 and No. 46, respectively, in its 2004 list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, and the line "Hello, gorgeous" at No. 81 in its 2005 list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. Funny Girl is considered one of the greatest musical films ever made.[3][4][5]

In 2016, Funny Girl was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[6][7]

  1. ^ "Funny Girl (U)". British Board of Film Classification. October 3, 1968. Archived from the original on July 26, 2023. Retrieved November 17, 2012.
  2. ^ "Funny Girl (1968)". The Numbers. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved January 9, 2012.
  3. ^ Daly, Steve (December 18, 2008). "25 Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time!". Entertainment Weekly. Time. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  4. ^ "Top 50 Musicals". Film4. Channel 4. Archived from the original on June 24, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  5. ^ Champion, Lindsay (December 18, 2014). "Pass the Popcorn! Broadway.com Readers Rank the Top 10 Best Movie Musicals of All Time". Broadway.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  6. ^ "With '20,000 Leagues', the National Film Registry Reaches 700". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on November 26, 2020. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  7. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved October 2, 2020.